


Reckless

by faithfulcynic



Category: Witches of East End (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 06:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2803409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithfulcynic/pseuds/faithfulcynic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joanna’s games were like many young girls – she was Frigg - the eternal mother - and she would dress her dolls and feed them and tell them stories and love them equally despite any faults. </p>
<p>Wendy’s toys were the frequent victims of troll attacks. (The trolls may have gone after Joanna’s toys too.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reckless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [valkyrierising](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valkyrierising/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, valkyrierising! I tried to get a little bit of everything you asked for in here - hope you enjoy! :)
> 
> Spoilers for Seasons 1 and 2.

When they were very young, the girls would play in the blue-lit bower of their father’s castle. Joanna’s games were like many young girls – she was Frigg - the eternal mother - and she would dress her dolls and feed them and tell them stories and love them equally despite any faults. (Several had arms or legs that refused to stay attached, no matter how many times Mother mended them.) 

It was agreed by all that Joanna was a natural – a living embodiment of wholesome, nurturing, loving maternal care, blah blah blah, and would one day be an excellent mother. 

Wendy’s toys were the frequent victims of troll attacks. (The trolls may have gone after Joanna’s toys too.) 

Everywhere Wendy went it was Joanna this and Joanna that. Joanna was so nice, they said. She was so responsible. (Joanna was so perfect.) Wasn’t it strange, they said, that two girls raised the same could turn out so different. 

Of course Wendy knew what they meant. They meant, why couldn’t she be more like Joanna?

And it wasn’t that Wendy didn’t want children, she did. She just didn’t see why she couldn’t be a mother _and_ fight off hordes of angry giants. She didn’t see why she couldn’t explore the other realms _and_ be a wife, have a family. 

Her father, however, said that mothers didn’t do these things. He said mothers were calm and quiet and giving. He repeated that they were quiet. 

Even as a child, Wendy thought that this was bullshit. Wendy and her children were going to fight the trolls and the giants together. They were going to skip over the rainbow bridge, visit the lands of old gods, sprint through the fires of Hell, and take long vacations on Earth. 

And so, she made a point of climbing higher, of leaping farther, and running faster than the other children. Of being the bold one, the most daring. (It also didn’t hurt when she learned how to shift into a sly and stealthy cat.) Because Wendy was not calm, or quiet, and Wendy was never one to back down from a fight. 

The other children, Joanna, and even Helena thought she was as brave as any hero of legend. Unfortunately, the other adults thought she was a pain in the ass. And her father still shook his head. 

‘Why can’t you sit still?” he would ask. ‘Why must you always be so difficult?’

Of course she knew what he really meant. He meant, why can’t you be more like Joanna.

“Wendy?”

Mother had tracked her to the bower, where Wendy had surrounded herself with a moat of Joanna’s tragically fallen dolls. (All victims of those pesky trolls.) 

“I’m not Joanna,” Wendy spat.

Mother looked around at the carnage and raised an eyebrow. “I never thought so,” she said mildly.

“Father does,” Wendy said. “He caught me trying to sneak a ham out of the kitchen.”

“A ham?” her mother asked with surprise.

“Victor said a cat couldn’t get it up the stairs,” she said, frowning at her mother’s quiet snort of laughter. “And I would have made it too only Father stopped me. He said … he said …” Wendy exploded. “I’m sick to death of everyone telling me to be like Joanna! I’m not perfect like Joanna! I’ll never be Joanna!”

Wendy then told her mother everything, confessing about sacking the dolls and Joanna being perfect and how everyone implied that Wendy was not and how her father wished she was just like her sister. Her mother listened patiently to Wendy’s tirade before pushing past the dolls’ graveyard to sit down at the window seat. She patted the window seat and Wendy reluctantly trudged over to sit. 

Mother looked at her thoughtfully for a moment and then gestured at the stained window with a soft word. The blue glass melted from the panes and twisted through the air, landing like liquid into her mother’s palm, while the room brightened into a golden yellow. Mother closed her fist and when she reopened it there was a necklace there with a large blue teardrop falling from a circular blue stone. She placed it into Wendy’s hand. 

“What your father said was unjust and we will have words about it later,” Mother added. “But what’s important to know now is that Joanna isn’t perfect.”

Wendy snorted. “Yeah, right,”

“She isn’t.”

Wendy sniffed back her tears, suddenly interested in what her mother knew. “Really?”

Mother smirked. “Just this once. Have you ever noticed that Joanna tends to ignore things that she isn’t ready to deal with?”

Wendy had never really thought about it before but she supposed Jo did sometimes do that. It was actually pretty frustrating trying to win an argument with her, Wendy realized. Joanna would always change the subject.

“And she lies like a champion.”

_“Joanna?”_

Her mother nodded. “Watch her sometime. There’s a lot you can learn from your sister, including how to plan out something like your little ham escapade.” Wendy flushed. “But the point is that Joanna is far from perfect but I love her anyway. Just as I love you and just as I love Helena. You are who you are, Wendy, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Wendy frowned. “But everyone loves Joanna.”

“They admire Joanna,” her mother corrected. “But they don’t really know Joanna as we do. They don’t know what makes her sad or angry or impossible. They don’t know what makes you sweet and caring or nurturing. How could they? They aren’t family.”

Wendy thought over this. “I guess you’re right. So is this,” she asked, holding up the necklace, “some kind of symbol to remember or something?”

Mother laughed. “You’ve had a hard day, sweetheart. And I’ve always found that jewelry helps with those. Shall we clean up this battlefield before your sister sees what you’ve done?”

Wendy looked out at the mess she had created and winced. 

Her mother died a few weeks later and all of Asgard had mourned her. Wendy kept the necklace close to her heart because the reminder of her mother’s love helped ease the pain of her loss.

Later Wendy would know that her father was truly evil when he tied the necklace into her curse. 

****

They said that power corrupted absolutely, but Wendy said that some people were just born evil, psychotic assholes. (To be fair, she supposed the Serpent’s Clavum had helped with that. Somewhat.)

King Nikolaus’ reign in Asgard had begun with joyous celebration and good intentions and had quickly dissolved into intimidation, torture, and outright execution of anyone he found a threat. Joanna’s children and husband were quick to join the rebellion (and Wendy, of course, had been at the forefront of it since the beginning) but Joanna took some convincing. Her sister still saw the good in their father and couldn’t admit that he was lost forever. She eventually joined the rebellion and together they fought long and hard against their father (and Helena) but in the end it wasn’t enough. Wendy would never be sure if it was because Joanna couldn’t commit enough power to defeating their father or if she herself had used too much power banishing Helena to Hell, but in the end they, like so many others, had to flee through the portal to Earth. 

No one could have predicted Frederick’s betrayal. (Wendy perfected her skill at reading auras afterwards.)

It didn’t take long to learn what their father had done to them. As far as curses went, Wendy’s wasn’t so bad. Knowing you were going to die was a fundamental truth of mortal life and she was pretending to be a mortal now; she just had a longer lifespan than most. (She missed the blue of her mother’s necklace though.)

It was harder for the girls who, if they were told, knew they would only live a very short time and never quite as their original selves. 

It was even harder for Joanna and Victor, who had to watch their girls die over and over again, each one different from the last, like losing dozens of children, and know that they were powerless to stop it. (It would take a long time for Wendy to forgive Victor for leaving, when Joanna, simply because of her biology, could not) She watched her sister grow harder over the years, grow colder towards anyone who threatened her family, and was saddened by the loss of her sister’s innocence. 

Wendy’s curse was easier in comparison but still… it was hard. She figured out pretty early on that she would never have children, which hurt in a way she hadn’t expected. Her childhood plan of troll fighting and rainbow bridge skipping was out but Wendy had thought she would at least have Earth to explore. Sometimes watching her sister’s family – even with the knowledge of their own curses – was almost too much to bear. 

And then sometimes, after Wendy would die, there would be a flicker of a memory – flames surrounding a dark lake – that would haunt her for days afterwards. 

But Wendy had never been one to back down from a fight and so she made a point of doing what she wanted, despite any danger or consequence. She refused to be tied down by her curse, to be limited and afraid. She refused to suffer like her father wanted. 

This naturally led to some of her more memorable deaths - syphilis, the cannonball, the trapeze accident - but no one could say that Wendy didn’t live life to the fullest. 

Sometimes her antics made her family laugh and sometimes they drove her family crazy (and then Jo would launch into tediously dour sermons) but everyone knew that Wendy would never stop being Wendy. (And she didn’t know how to tell them that if she didn’t keep moving forward, they would one day find Wendy curled into a ball of misery and sobbing her heart out.) 

But even if their lives were hard and they weren’t exactly what everyone had originally thought they would be, it all mostly worked out. Joanna and Wendy grew closer, bonding as only strangers in a foreign land can, and there were good times and adventures and laughter. 

And then in 1906 Wendy accidentally murdered Ingrid. 

***

In hindsight, letting Ingrid carry on with Archibald Browning, even if Wendy thought it was just a phase, was not one of her smartest moves. (She would - very painfully – continue to regret it years later when Dead Ingrid plunged her fist into Wendy’s chest and crushed her heart) A thousand what-ifs followed Ingrid’s death – what if Wendy had told Joanna about Browning, what if she had been more convincing in her argument against Browning to Ingrid, what if she had waited one more moment to throw that spell at him … What if, what if, what if.

After she saved Wendy’s life, Joanna had said that Wendy was reckless and that she did things without thinking. (All true.) She told Wendy to leave and in that moment Wendy almost wished her sister had just killed her instead of pushing her out into the world all alone. 

That moment of weakness didn’t last long though. The next years were some of the most exciting ones yet. For the first time in her life she was completely free of her family and she made good use of her freedom. Then she met Ronan and the next several decades were an on-again, off-again whirlwind of passion, con games, and general debauchery. Wendy loved Ronan because with him her recklessness went unchecked, but their relationship often soured because he was just as careless as she was. (She thought the last – well, third last – straw was the time he got her shot in Paris.)

Away from Ronan, Wendy was a better person. She had been a nurse in World War Two and a civil rights activist in the 60’s. The world had her to thank for the Rolling Stones. (She had also unfortunately encouraged disco, but no one was perfect.) The world, as they said, had been her goddamned oyster. 

She was determined not to miss her family. (Wendy still kept up on what was happening with them though.)

At first Wendy had called Joanna occasionally even though her sister refused to talk to her. Over time Jo eventually would say a few words but then soon hang up. Finally Wendy once got to tell the full tale of “Wendy Attempts to be the First Woman on the Moon,” only to have Joanna sigh. 

“Oh, Wendy,” Joanna said. 

Wendy knew what that meant. Joanna _thought_ it meant ‘Why can’t you be more careful, more responsible,’ but what it really meant was ‘I can’t take care of another child.’

Joanna soon hung up again. Wendy tried a few more times after that but Joanna wouldn’t answer, which made Wendy sad. She never got to recount the tale of “Wendy Eaten by the Crocodile.”

And, of course, Wendy’s dreams of darkness and fire grew stronger with every death. 

By the late ‘90’s she was living in New Orleans and opening a voodoo shop just made sense. Besides, she had always liked having a store, even if it did occasionally make her think of the last days with her family in 1906. She still missed them, but Wendy kept her distance because that was want Joanna wanted.

Wendy stayed away until she dreamt of the Shifter, of green eyes with Joanna’s face. She dealt the deck for Joanna, not _really_ alarmed yet but deciding it couldn’t hurt, and then afterwards she ran to her sister as fast as she could. (After she had recovered from getting killed by the car.)

****

Wendy had expected that she and Joanna would eventually reconcile. Joanna was stubborn but also kind, and Wendy, without false modesty, was not without charm. 

She had expected to grow close to the girls again. She hadn’t quite seen her sister not telling them about their magic, or the curse, even if it was a classic, blinders-on Joanna move. (Wendy had also not expected that the girls would die – or that Joanna would try and kill herself – so soon after they had reunited and she was resolutely not going to think about that horrible day ever again.) 

She had expected the stones of her necklace to finally turn red. It was, after all, inevitable.

Wendy had not expected to fall in love. 

It had been sudden and quick, like most of her relationships honestly, but it had also been something else. Something with the potential to deepen and be true. Wendy shouldn’t have pursued it, should have known better, but in the end she couldn’t help herself. 

And then her father had killed Tommy and that love had been snatched away. It was made worse by seeing her father use Tommy’s body like some terrible marionette and then had him say all those spiteful things that Wendy knew her father had always thought of her. The defeat of Nikolaus with the freeing spell was the most relieving and painful moment of her life. Their father was finally gone, no longer able to hunt them, to hurt them, but Tommy was finally dead too.

Wendy’s decision in that next moment had been a little reckless, but not thoughtless. Joanna and the girls and Frederick would be okay. With Nikolaus dead, they would find a way to go home if they so wished. And Wendy had lived a very long, very full life.

And Tommy’s little girl would have a father again. There would be adventures and laughter and love. 

It was a good trade off, Wendy thought. 

She said the spell and felt herself sink. She didn’t see the stone in her necklace turn, black but she knew that it had. Wendy awoke in a lake ringed by fire, confused at first until her sister stepped forward.

“Helena?” Wendy asked and then, because she was who she was, squared her shoulders and prepared for the worst. “Hello, Helena.”

****

Joanna carefully brushed back Wendy’s hair before stepping away from the table that held the bodies of her son and her sister. Ingrid and Freya were in the garden, gathering the herbs that Joanna had asked them for, and it had taken all that Joanna had had not to insist that she go out with them. Like all mothers, Joanna knew that she couldn’t be with them at every moment, but she would also never lose the urge to protect them, to keep them safe. 

It had, after all, been a very bad week. 

She took a deep, steadying breath and reached for her grimoire. 

The girls came back inside with their hands full of herbs. Even though they both were devastated by the loss of Wendy and Frederick, she couldn’t help but notice that Ingrid looked paler than usual while Freya would have moments where her attention would drift away and a small smile would suddenly light up her face. Joanna would have to investigate these things later, she decided. 

“Okay, girls,” Joanna said finally. She felt a thousand times older that she actually was. “Time to get to work.”

Freya looked up. “What do you mean?”

“We’re going to bring them back.” 

“What?” Freya asked. “I thought grandfather was the only one who could do that.”

Ingrid’s eyes widened. “You can’t just bring someone back from the dead without consequences.”

“You’re right - you can’t. And he was,” Joanna replied. “But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from your Aunt Wendy, it’s to never back down from a fight."


End file.
